January 2026 Visits to BRGPLNR

These a few from the visit of 24 January. All these were taken with my Sigma 105mm macro lens on the Canon R7. I did take a lot more but I thought my photos from the later visits were better.

Here we have:-

• some Bonnet Mushrooms – Mycena sp. plus a fly
• Oysterling fungus, Crepidotus sp.
• a tiny Velvet Shank, Flammulina velutipes. See below for clusters of larger ones that are shiny with dark stems.
• and trails left by bark beetle larvae

The fallen tree with the bark beetle larvae tracks was covered in moss and lichen and I couldn’t identify it though it could have been a variety of Elm. The beetle larvae tracks have the characteristic shape of Scolytus. This beetle can be a carrier of the Ophiostoma novo-ulmi fungus which causes Dutch Elm Disease. I have heard that BRGPLNR has Wych Elm trees and that many are affected by Dutch Elm Disease.

The visit of 29 Jan was again mainly with my macro lens, getting up close to some tiny fungi.

Quite a few of the trees had tiny Bonnet mushrooms growing out of the wood, bark or the moss covering. In one place several of the tiny ones had been hit by raindrops and the droplet was still clinging to the cap of the fungus.

You can see the size of some of them where I used my finger for scale. Because of the way they were growing out of the wood I was not able to use a coin for scale. Using my finger for scale means that I was holding, focusing, and shooting the camera with one hand. This is not easy when using back button focusing with the heavy macro lens and a ring-flash stuck on the end of it. I have now added a small steel rule and a couple of crocodile clips to my camera bag with the idea that I can clip the rule to something for scale, I would then have 2 hands to operate the camera.

I looked again at the tree with the bark beetle larvae tracks. Something (a Woodpecker? Someone looking for more tracks?) had been pulling at the bark and more of the wood was exposed in several places. I had a look under and found several pale larvae. They match the description of Scolytus, but then so do quite a few other larvae.

Under the bark I also saw a small earthworm surrounded by tiny Yellow Discos.

Having seen the tiny Velvet Shank on the previous visit I was not surprised to see several clusters of much larger Velvet Shank.

At the end of my visit I went across the road to look at the flooded field next to the water treatment plant. The light was fading so it was difficult to get photos but in the field were dozens of Pied Wagtails. I planned that on my next visit I would have a look in the field before going into the reserve. Read on for the reason that this did not quite work out as planned. I also spotted several Curlew over the far side

On this trip out I was thinking of visiting Denso Marston Nature Reserve so I parked in the lay-by but decided to go and have a look in the garden of St James Church. I did spot what I think is Wrinkled Club fungus, Clavulina rugosa but the photo isn’t worth putting on here.

There were several clusters of Snowdrops, looking nice an fresh. And colourful Winter Cyclamen.

After having a look around the garden I decided to head off to BRGPLNR instead of DMNR.

As planned, on arriving at BRGPLNR I went across the road to see if Pied Wagtail were still there. I looked over the hedge and spotted some but at the same time several people came down the wooded slope at the back, waving white flags or hankies, banging sticks on the ground and generally making a noise. I then spotted several green-clad figures walking along at the bottom carrying shotguns. It sounded like there were other guns because I heard the noise of them but it wasn’t from the ones I could see. A dog was also running about. The initial commotion had caused several Wagtails to fly of and they were soon followed by the rest as the shooting boomed out.

I waited a couple of minutes for silence and the return of the Wagtails but the beaters and shooters were in no rush to go through, 31 Jan being the last day of the Open Shooting Season, so I headed into the reserve.

For this visit I kept my long lens, a Canon RF 200-800mm, on the camera.

Next to the river, in the crook of a Willow tree, were a few decent sized Bonnet mushrooms that didn’t need my to use my macro lens.

At the far end of the reserve I spent a few minutes watching a large flock of Lapwing swirling around. I managed to get about 260 of them in the frame, see the header image, but there were smaller flocks around at the same time so there could easily have been 400 flying around across the other side of the river.

Towards the end of my visit I went across the road again. No guns going off now. On the hedge a Robin was singing away and over the other side of the hedge were several dozen Pied Wagtails, running around feeding, and jumping up into the air to catch flies.

Several Curlew flew over but none were in the first field. Over in the next field I could see brown smudgy lines that were too thick to be the cut vegetation so I walked along the pavement towards Ben Rhydding, keeping low so as not to startle any birds more than necessary. I was pretty sure what was causing the lines and as I got closer they became recognisable as Curlew, loads of them. I reckon there is close to 200 in the flock that is in the air. This was in addition to the ones on the ground.